


I Told You From the Start

by Violsva



Series: Go On Take Everything [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, F/F, Great Hiatus, M/M, Mourning, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:44:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6375220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of England knows about Sherlock Holmes' death. Watson receives visitors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Told You From the Start

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [consultingpiskies](http://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingpiskies). You should probably read [Just How This Would End](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1609529) before this.

I could not refuse to be at home to visitors, at least not all the time. Certainly I was at home in the physical sense; the idea of going outside, in the London spring I had seen so often with Holmes, made my chest ache with longing for him. It did now at any hint of him, and living back at Baker Street everything hinted of him.

Not that I regretted my return.

I received huge numbers of letters of condolence, gifts, flowers – they were not for me personally, of course, but I was at Baker Street to accept them. And some of those who lived closer decided to come themselves, perhaps just to gawp at the house without realizing anyone still lived there. Mrs. Hudson dealt with many of them, but it clearly taxed her at least as much as it did me. I did not want to increase the burden on her by refusing to see even people I knew.

So a few days after the memorial Mary Watson and Miss Violet Hunter were shown up.

Mrs Hudson had been rather cold to me immediately after my return to Baker Street, until, I think, Holmes told her something of the circumstances, and specifically that Mary was provided for. I had tried to offer Mary an income, and received a polite refusal that still managed to point out that I really couldn't afford to do so. But she had also told me of her teaching position, though I had failed at the time to connect it with her friendship with Miss Hunter.

It was, indeed, a compete surprise to me that Miss Hunter accompanied Mary that afternoon. But I wasn’t expecting Mary herself, either. I did not know if they had been at the funeral; I would not have seen them in the crowds if they had.

I relied on rote politeness frequently in those days, and that got me through the initial greetings and condolences. But this was Mary, not any other old client, and after the formalities I could neither express my thoughts nor think of anything less personal to say.

“John,” said Mary, “how are you _really_?”

I blinked and realized she meant it. And that she _knew_. Of course she did; I had told her myself – but no one else did. Except, perhaps, Miss Hunter, who sat next to her with a grave and sympathetic face. I took a deep breath.

“I am – it is -” I stumbled, because if she knew, then she would be expecting the depth of grief no one else had truly expected. Which I should feel – which I _did_ feel – but which still made me feel detached from reality, given what had happened.

“I am not doing so very badly,” I managed.

“If you need anything, write me,” said Mary. “Or come to Walsall. You needn’t stay here if there are too many memories.”

“Thank you.”

My gaze fell on Miss Hunter, small and round and freckled, and still looking quietly sorrowful, and I wondered suddenly why she had come. She was an old client, she must be Mary’s friend, but she was just sitting there, holding Mary’s hand, not saying anything I expected from former clients, about Holmes’ greatness and what a loss it was to the world.

“Tell me you are well,” I said to Mary, without thinking.

She glanced at Miss Hunter and then back to me. “I am,” she said. “But I will always be ready to help you.”

She might have spoken further, but I cut her off. “That is what I need to know. That you are – that it was -”

With clients, with friends, I had a script. Now, there was nothing conventional about this conversation, especially not with the realization growing at the back of my mind. I had no platitudes to fall back on, and I was not sure I could manage to form original sentences without saying the one thing I kept wanting to say, just to one other person, just to have someone else who knew.

“John,” said Mary, her voice breaking a little. “I am so sorry. But I am well. And if there is anything I -”

“We,” murmured Miss Hunter.

“- anything we can do to make things easier for you, we will. You need not suffer alone.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For now, I am managing.” Suddenly I wanted them both out of the room, before I did say something regrettable, or dangerous.

“I’ll write,” said Mary. She stood, and I remembered how intuitive she had always been, and I missed – not her, for Holmes had been as well. Both of them, perhaps, though she was still in the room. Or just having someone there, every day, who would -

“Thank you. Good day.”

“Goodbye, John. I wish you well.” Miss Hunter bid me goodbye as well. I held onto myself until they left.

“Dammit, Holmes,” I whispered fiercely. “Dammit, I want you _here_. Why do I have to do this?”

I could not even write him to express myself. Not because he was dead. For he was _alive_ , and I knew he was alive, almost the only man in England to know it, and yet he had left me to perform this charade, to let my true anger be false grief, and not even given me an address where I could reach him, or any idea of when he would return.

The only man I could perhaps talk to was Mycroft Holmes, and when I had, after the funeral, I had found his unruffled acceptance of the situation alienating. I was not sure if he truly felt nothing or if he simply declined to share his emotions with me. I was certain he knew of my and Holmes’ relationship, but I had no idea how he felt about that either, except for a faint belief that he would not have kept displeasure hidden.

So, for me, the world was divided into three: those who thought Holmes dead, and had no idea what he had been to me; those few who knew of our closeness but not that he was alive; and me and Mycroft Holmes, and somewhere Holmes himself, who had thrown me into this without so much as a by-your-leave. No doubt he thought my part in this was simple.

It had been two weeks. I had no idea how much longer it would be.

I had no idea what I would say to him when he returned, or what I wanted to say. But he had given me the impression that I would have plenty of time to consider it.


End file.
